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Senator Keating asked whether | knew for sure that President Kennedy had been informed of the presence of the missiles, but | told him there was no way of knowing. Privately, | would have been shocked if intelligence sources had kept this information away from the President because there were so many intelligence pathways to the Oval Office the President would have found out no matter who tried to keep the information away. So it was pretty clear to me that the administration was trying to keep the news from the American people so that neither the Russians nor the Cubans would be embarrassed and have their backs against the wall. | also knew that by going to Senator Keating and Representative Feighan | was taking a huge risk. | was leaking information outside the military and executive chains of command to the legislative branch. But, that same April, | had already testified to Senator Dirksen's committee on the administration of the Internal Security Act that it was my belief - and | had proof to back it up - that our intelligence services, particularly the Board of Estimate, had been penetrated by the KGB and as a result we lost a war in Korea that we should have won. The testimony was regarded as classified and was never released. But it made its way to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who promised me, in a private interview at the Justice Department, that he would personally make sure his brother, the President, read it. Now here it was a little more than six months later and whatever intelligence information the President was getting about a serious Soviet threat to U.S. security, it was clear that unless somebody stopped them, the Russians were going to get away with it. Not on my watch. President Kennedy had gone up to Hyannis Port, and the vice president, Lyndon Johnson, a friend of Ken Keating's from his days as Senate majority leader, was completely out of the decision-making loop within the White House. The rumors were that because of his association with Bobby Baker, there was going to be an investigation of the vice president and he might return as a member of the ticket in1964. So Senator Keating didn't recommend going to Lyndon Johnson with this information. Besides, we had to get it right in front of the public so it couldn't be swept away, leaving the White House free to ignore it until it was too late to force the Soviets' hand. This was a gamble, of course, because the whole world could explode in our faces, but | knew that the only way to deal with the Russians was put their noses in it and teach them a lesson. Had we done that in Korea the way MacArthur wanted to, there probably wouldn't have been a Vietnam War. One of my old friends in the Washington press corps was Paul Scott, the syndicated political columnist whose pieces appeared in the Boston Globe and the Washington Post. If we gave him the story, it would find its way into the Globe and the Post at the same time, right in the President's face and forcing him to act. | didn't enjoy this, but there was no other way. So Senator Keating, Mike Feighan, and | coordinated strategy. | called Scott and told him | had seen some photos and had an interpretation he needed to hear. We met, not at the Pentagon, and | described to him the copies of the photos that | had seen and explained, in very general terms and without revealing anything classified about our surveillance apparatus, how they were taken, why they were authentic, and what they meant. "You understand that when | saw these cylinders, "| said to him, drawing on a notepad the tiny barrels in the photos on the deck of a ship, "these are intermediate range ballistic missiles that can hit Washington, New York, or Boston within fifteen minutes after launch. We don't even detect these babies until they're just below orbit and coming down. That gives us maybe five minutes to get under our desks. But with nuclear warheads on them, anybody sitting anywhere near where they detonate is not going to be protected. " "It's not the Cubans, "| explained. "It's Soviet blackmail. They're not going to turn a bunch of missiles over to Fidel Castro and put the trigger for a nuclear war in someone else's hand. The Soviets will have complete control, they'll have their own troops on the island, and they'll threaten to launch them if we or anybody tries to throw Castro out." "Because, "| said hoping for a sense of outrageous indignation in him that would motivate him to action, "the President already knows and won't do anything about it." | was right; the newspaperman was in shock. He half suspected that Kennedy wanted to avoid any and all confrontation until he made it to his second term, but this was outright capitulation, he said. "Ne can't get away with it. " "Oh, yes, he can, "| warned him. "If we don't get the story out, it goes away. The President's sticking his head in the sand and hoping nobody pulls it out. You have to run this in the Globe right when he's in Massachusetts and force him to confront it. He flies back to Washington and it's in the Post. Then the Soviets know that he knows and it's alla complete mess. " 109 "What's the point?" he asked. "Why would the Cubans want to get into a war with the United States?" "Why are you telling me this?" he asked. "But what if this sets off a war, " Scott said.